Having two projects called EverQuest Next and EverQuest Next Landmark can be confusing. Although they sound similar, the two projects have different goals. Thankfully, Sony Online Entertainment recently decided to avoid the problem altogether and shortened the name of EverQuest… Continue Reading →

Having two projects called EverQuest Nextand EverQuest Next Landmark can be confusing. Although they sound similar, the two projects have different goals. Thankfully, Sony Online Entertainment recently decided to avoid the problem altogether and shortened the name of EverQuest Next Landmark to just Landmark. But that leaves the question: What exactly separates these two mass multiplayer online games?

I had a chance to check out Landmark at GDC and get a better idea between the two. The best way to describe the game is that it looks like a next-gen version of Minecraft, where players can craft almost anything they want. Dave Georgeson, director of development for EverQuest franchise, showed off bridges, couches and any number of objects from furniture to castles. It was impressive and rivaled some of the projects I’ve seen in Markus Persson’s indie blockbuster.

What’s interesting though, as Georgeson points out, is that players have adapted the limited tools developers gave them and improved the design. Players created something called microvoxels, which are tiny building blocks, that are used to create some of the more intricate objects in the world. It’s a technique the developers weren’t expecting and the results were impressive with latticelike platforms that show players what’s beneath them.

Structures like this are possible through microvoxels.

A TRUE SANDBOX: Right now, Landmark is focused on building (solo and co-op), but Georgeson says that the team will introduce other gameplay elements that players can fiddle with such as monster creation and the AI that runs it. From what I’ve seen, Landmark is almost like a test bed for what’s eventually going to be in EverQuest Next. Landmark will focus on user-generated content and perhaps some of that may even be integrated into its counterpoart. But from what I’ve seen, Landmark is a place where players can let their imagination run wild building anything they want. It doesn’t even have to be fantasy related.

That unbridled creativity could pay off for some players because Landmark supports SOE’s Player Studio market. Started in 2012, it allows players to create objects in a game and sell it to other players for real money. In Landmark, there’s a system where players can vote up objects they like. When exploring, they can stumble upon a player’s plot of land, see what they’re doing and leave gold, resources or advice. The free-to-play game looks promising as it entered its closed beta March 26.

Planetside 2 has grown to include new types of environments.

EVOLVING SHOOTER:Planetside 2 was released more than a year ago, and it has come a long way since then. Tramell Isaac, senior art director, said a game isn’t necessarily finished when it’s pushed out to the public. He explained that the shooter has evolved as the developer got feedback from players. “We had to figure out how people are playing,” he said. “It’s the best way to make a game. It helps us as developers work on stuff that’s most important to players.”

One of the things SOE updated was the initiation process. Planetside 2 was so wide open and intimidating that players didn’t know where to start. To ease them in, the team added tutorials and a quiz that funnels newbies into a role they’re most comfortable with. That usability extended to other parts of the game with a lattice system that shows players the roads and guides them to the front lines of the never-ending conflict among the game’s three factions. “Allowing people to go anywhere they want was a bad idea,” Isaac said. “They didn’t see where the fight is.”

When it came to the technical aspect, Isaac said they updated the code to improve the frame rate by the 30 percent. It made some game sessions that previously ran at 30 frames per second run at 60. If that weren’t enough, the developers changed maps to favor playstyles that players wanted and improved the balance. Bases got a revamped to offer more cover. Elsewhere, the terrains changed to allow for more infantry battles.

ANALYZING PLAYER BEHAVIOR: Vehicles was another area that drastically evolved since Planetside 2 first launched. The Quads used to be solo vehicle but SOE tweaked it after they discovered that players used it as a cheap and easy mode of transportation. Players would go out in a posse of quads for an attack, so Isaac said the team altered the vehicle and added a rumble seat to make it co-op friendly. Now buddies could hop aboard and fire at foes, making it an offensive vehicle. That led to the creation of another vehicle that’s a step up called a Harasser that seats three. The team is now looking to add another vehicle that holds four to five people but still seats less than the Sunderer, the granddaddy of all land vehicles, which seats 12.

On the player side, SOE has seen that there’s a market for user-generated content. Like Landmark, Planetside 2 also has Player Studio support. Isaac said that successful creators have been able to make thousands of dollars on helmet designs, camo patterns or knife designs. Eventually, he said he wants to make custom suit designs available.

Talking to Isaac, the most impressive thing about Planetside 2’s evolution is how Sony Online Entertainment has worked to build a community with it’s free-to-play game. Isaac says transparency is important to the team, and they’ve come up with shows via Twitch to explain the design process on maps. They talk about why a bridge is in a specific place or what they have planned for the next month. From what I’ve heard, it sounds as though a game’s design isn’t dictated from the developer on down. Players have a role in telling the team what works and what doesn’t.

“It’s a holistic approach,” Isaac said. “It’s not making a game and moving on. It’s not making a game and looking at the forums every once in a while. It’s making a game and giving the community tools to make that game fun.” He mentioned how SOE has hosted events that came from the community. They offered to create 48 versus 48 matches against Outfits, also known as clans in Planetside 2.

“Community can drive development and creation of fun in the game,” Isaac said. “They don’t have to wait for us to do it.”

I’ve been following Dragon’s Prophet since GDC, and today, the free-to-play MMO is making its official debut after a long beta. Since I first saw it, the game that has a Pokemon element where you capture and train dragons has… Continue Reading →

I’ve been following Dragon’s Prophet since GDC, and today, the free-to-play MMO is making its official debut after a long beta. Since I first saw it, the game that has a Pokemon element where you capture and train dragons has under gone a few changes. Here’s a list of upgraded features:

1. The developers at Runewaker Entertainment have raised the number of dragons players can keep. There are quite a few species out there. Now, using a feature called the Dragon Chamber, players can hold up to 96 additional dragons. Combine that with 12 on hand and that’s 108 animals overall. Unfortunately, those critters in the Dragon Chamber don’t generate resources for you and to unlock them, players will need to pony up Station Cash.

2. Guilds have been upgraded to include sanctuaries where they can summon bosses for practice. This is done by earning pieces for a summoning ritual. Players can still earn lesser loot from the fight, but more importantly, it’s a way for large groups to plan and coordinate attacks for the real thing.

3. Runewaker is introducing a new zone called Inartia and the team is also shutting down two starting zones so that players are concentrated in one. They found it was too spread out in the beta and they wanted to focus players in one zone. Those old starting areas will return, but they’ll be reworked. In addition, Runewaker is also setting up events, where older, more experienced players can return to the beginning zones to help out newbies. Think of a legendary dragon terrorizing newbies.

4. There’s a Frontier System, where guilds will battle other guilds for 14 floating islands. This is basically the place for PVP, but first off, the guild or alliance — which is a collection of guilds — has to take over the Citadel on the isle in the air. The fight is done via a Conquest-type mode where players have to hold on to capture points. Once they control a Citadel on a floating, they can set up defenses, direct NPCs and summon a fight with a legendary dragon for higher-end gear.

5. Other minor changes include readjust the price of player homes. Now it’s more affordable. In addition, players will now have a separate bag for pets, which act mostly as prestige item and has no effect on gameplay. There’s also a new dance emote.

It seems that there’s a new free-to-play MMO coming out every month. They always range the gamut in quality and include everything from top down sprite-based games such asRagnarok Online to dynamic polygonal worlds like Eve Online. It takes a… Continue Reading →

It seems that there’s a new free-to-play MMO coming out every month. They always range the gamut in quality and include everything from top down sprite-based games such asRagnarok Online to dynamic polygonal worlds like Eve Online. It takes a lot to stand out, and Sony Online Entertainment hopes that its upcoming project Dragon’s Prophet will do enough to catch players’ eyes.

I had a chance to check out the Runewaker Entertainment-developed MMO at this year’s GDC and the best way to describe it is that it’s a more visceral World of Warcraft game with a Pokemon element. Players choose from four classes: Guardian who specializes in melee combat, Sorcerer who is your magic user, Ranger who fires off ranged weapons and oracle who is the healer and DPS dealer. Those are your common MMO archetypes.

There are plenty of environments to explore including Syderna Fort

But where Dragon’s Prophet changes it up is when players handle titular creatures. That’s when the MMO takes an odd turn and changes into everyone’s collectible monster game. The MMO lets your character tame random dragons he sees through the world. After a short minigame, that monster becomes your sidekick in battle and mount when exploring the world. With 100 to 150 tameable creatures, there’s a lot to collect.

But players can carry only six dragons at a time and store six in a stall. Like Pokemon, they’ll have to wander the world and find ones they want. Some may be able to fly. Others lumber across the ground. Each type has their own specialties and traits, and even within the species, some may have different skills from others. Thankfully, you can mix and match them among creatures, so players have control over what type of dragon they want to build.

The creature design is hit and miss but when its on like this Giant, the game can be beautiful.

At first, the dragons may seem ancillary and geared toward exploration, but they’re quite powerful in combat. Players will want to keep them around as their trump card in battles. Some fans may even boost their charisma stat to keep the creatures around longer during a fight. (They have a time limit to when they can be used.)

If hunting and saving the world isn’t their thing, players can focus on crafting. There are six different categories to choose from — alchemy, weapon making, armor crafting, cooking, tinkering and carpentry — and most yield powerful items. The carpentry is useful if you want to furnish a house.

The scope of the world can be breath-taking at times.

In Dragon’s Prophet, players can own land and build a dwelling. Players can customize their parcel in any way they want with fences or larger houses. Later on, in future expansion, Sony is planning to add Citadels that will allow players to tax subjects in an area. As for the player vs player mode, it’s an optional thing just like the crafting. Players can switch it on whenever they want.

So how does Sony Online Entertainment make a profit from this free-to-play MMO? There are microtransanctions via Station cash that players will encounter through the campaign. It’s nothing that will upset the level of competition through this persistent world. It’s just a power-up that provides convenience. For example, players can pay to add an extra row of inventory so they don’t have to return to town to sell items as often. They can buy products that speed up time so their crated items build faster.

If you don’t have a flying dragon, players can take the ferry to their destination.

Dragon’s Prophet looks visually compelling and can match anything coming from Blizzard, but it’ll be fascinating to see if the Pokemon element resonates with a bigger audience. At this moment, it is still in the beta phase. But the free-to-play game is scheduled to be released on PC in the spring of this year.

I’m on a tour group but the locale we’re exploring is a place you likely never heard of. It’s filled with inhabitants you don’t know. And on trips to foreign places, you normally don’t board monstrous flying transports on a… Continue Reading →

I’m on a tour group but the locale we’re exploring is a place you likely never heard of. It’s filled with inhabitants you don’t know. And on trips to foreign places, you normally don’t board monstrous flying transports on a mission to take over enemy bases. But that’s par for the course on Indar, one of the continents players will be battling over in PlanetSide 2.

This was different from any demo I’ve done. It was executed virtually online as a member from the development team guided five members of the press through the ins and outs of the game. We only knew each other by our handles and the sounds of our voice as we chatted. Most demos are done with PR people on hand in controlled environments, not from the comfort of my desktop.

Immediately, what struck me was how vast the world is. PlanetSide 2 is a follow-up to the massive multiplayer online game that was far ahead of its time. But this time, it looks like the team at Sony Online Entertainment has the right goals in mind with the follow-up. It’s still persistent and players still earn points toward leveling up. (They call it a certification system.) The big difference is that this time around the shooter is visually improved and it also happens to be free to play, a trend that’s gaining steam in the industry.

This was our party in our short tour of Indar in PlanetSide 2.

COMBAT ON AN LARGE SCALE: Now, it was off to our first mission. Our tour guide waited for us to pick our classes and she spawned a ship. I was fortunate enough to man one of the guns on the Galaxy transport for our faction the Vanu Sovereignty. There are two other competing sides in the game: the New Conglomerate and Terran Republic, each with their own set of distinct vehicles. As we traveled, I got a good bird’s-eye view of the fighting going on. There dozens of individual skirmishes below me with tanks and other vehicles in one area and gun battles on foot in another. We even ran across random dogfights among jetfighters.

As soon as we neared our targeted node, a biolab, the gunfire started raining down on us. It was intense. I fired the Galaxy turrets but didn’t clear the landing area well enough. Dropping in a load of newbies in the middle of a warzone is probably not the best way to start. We were slaughtered by a better organized group. Our transport exploded. Everyone was gunned down and respawned.

If we would have survived, the tour guide said, the Galaxy would have acted as a spawn point and area where we could reload on ammo.

I was manning the guns and I could see our destination in the distance. Unfortunately, my team wasn’t prepared for the firefight.

DRIVING A TANK: Our next attempt at taking a base was via land vehicles. On the first excursion, we used the Vanu tank called the Magrider. The control is pretty standard for a vehicle of its type (WASD keys and turret controls). Players can expect collision damage so bad drivers beware. PlanetSide 2’s new Forgelight Engine not only makes the locales look gorgeous up to a point, but it also takes elevation into account when it comes to travel. Driving a Magrider up a hill will move it slower while going down hill will speed it up.

With tanks, we had a slightly better result trying to storm a base. Unfortunately, we ended up being easy targets for bombers.

We finally had success with a troop transport called the Sunderer. It’s basically a Galaxy that lumbers along the ground as two players man the turrets. Maybe it’s the fact that we figured out what classes to play as or maybe it’s that we hit our shooter stride, whatever the case we made quick work of the guards defending the base and took our first node, turning a red tile purple on the overall map.

Despite its size and role, the Magrider was more maneuverable than I was expecting.

RESOURCES MATTER: What’s interesting is that the placement of a tile has an effect on how quickly players have to sit and turn it. If you’re territory borders the tile, you’ll have an easier time taking it over. On the other hand, if you try to grab a tile in the middle of a faction’s zone, it will take a lot longer to convert the space to your side. The tiles are also important because they act as resources that enable things like fuel, ammo and tech bonuses.

The last vehicle we tested out before we were given free rein to mess around on Indar was the Scythe. It’s the Vanu Sovereignty’s fighter jet. Normally, I have the worst time with air vehicles. When flying a plane in Battlefield 3, I end up as a fiery crater on the ground 99 percent of the time. But with a few tips (barely move the mouse, control the vehicles with the WASD keys, land with the space bars), I was serviceable.

The day and night cycle has an effect on the look of the game and battles. In the chaos of the fight, it’s sometimes hard distinguishing friend from foe in the darkness.

DROPPING IN ON A TILE: I could travel from one area to another. I even went into the all-important map screen clicked on a way point and flew myself there. You can share waypoints with squad members or even click on a square and instantly drop in a zone via pods in a similar way to Starhawk.

With all these vehicles, players can’t just go to a terminal and expect them to instantly push out a vehicle all the time. Players have to earn credits and wait for a cooldown time if they want to spawn Galaxies or Magriders. They can’t expect to crash a plane, die, respawn and fly off in another jet. They have to wait on it and that delay can be agonizing. That’s partly how the game is expected to be balanced.

Right now, PlanetSide 2 is in beta for the PC. Players can try signing up to try out the game here.

BONUS POINTSThere is a day-night cycle and it dramatically effects the look of the level. Unfortunately, Sony Online Entertainment hasn’t nailed down the exact cycle yet. In the version, I played it was about four hours.As I mentioned before, the game looks gorgeous but the visuals do have its limits. The texture quality makes the game look good but not outstanding like say Battlefield 3.

Sony Online Entertainment has an interesting history with Star Wars titles. The company has produced the MMO Star Wars: Galaxies, which has mixed success. I’ve played that for a few months, but I couldn’t get into it. Now, they’re developing… Continue Reading →

Sony Online Entertainment has an interesting history with Star Wars titles. The company has produced the MMO Star Wars: Galaxies, which has mixed success. I’ve played that for a few months, but I couldn’t get into it.

Now, they’re developing a new virtual world Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, which is going to be based off the series on the Cartoon Network. It sounds like the game will have a model similar to FusionFall. It will be free to play but players can pony up for a monthly subscription for “to take the galactic action to the next level.” Yes, there’s also micro-transactions for those who want to buy special Star Wars outfits.

Eh, this could have potential, but Clone War Adventures is joining a crowded kids MMO field with Club Penguin, FusionFall, Free Realms and Hero 108. Can Clone Wars Adventures stand out from the crowd when it arrives this fall? I suppose it can. I mean, it is Star Wars isn’t it?